


Shorting Out Patience

by cassowarykisses



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mentions Ensemble Cast, Mid-Time Skip, Post Dark Cybertron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1524065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassowarykisses/pseuds/cassowarykisses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nautica just wants to help repair Metroplex. Brainstorm wants to learn everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shorting Out Patience

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon over on tumblr for the prompt "Nautica/Brainstorm."

"So, I hear you’ve heard of Ratchet," Brainstorm began, sidling up to Nautica. She glanced up from the sections of circuitry she was splicing together, her visor tinting his orange parts a greenish color.

"Yes, I have," she said, tilting her head back to look up him from where she crouched. "I thought you worked with him? Why would you want to know something about him?"  _It’s uncomfortable to sit like this_ , she thought, and stood up abruptly. One of the circuitboards she was working on hit the walls with a nasty-sounding crash, and Nautica disguised a wince. _I thought that was supported by something_ besides _my knee. I hope Metroplex’s sensory sub-centers are tough._

Brainstorm nudged the circuitry with his foot. “Eh, doesn’t feel broken.” he said. “But I guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours, if this side of Metroplex starts going haywire and electrocuting people.”

"Wait, it can do that?" Nautica said, optics flaring in surprise. Windblade was the resident expert on Titans, and she hadn’t mentioned anything like that.

"Well," Brainstorm began, then sighed abruptly, and let his arms fall to his sides with a harsh clank. "I don’t know! I was hoping you would know, what with all that time spent holed up inside his head."

"We didn’t see anything like that, and we were there for months," Nautica said.

"Oh." Brainstorm said. "How disappointing." He nudged the circuitry with his foot again, this time harder, like he was trying to provoke a response.

"What do you mean,  _disappointing_?” Nautica exclaimed. “Metroplex still has whole exposed section of circuitry up here - if he started sending out electrical pulses, half of Iacon would feel it! The last thing this planet is _two_  destructive Titans in less than a week.”

"Actually, I’m pretty sure it would be less than two days. But that doesn’t matter - the security systems inside the Titans were supposed to be incredible!" Brainstorm said, optics glowing with excitement. "I’ve dreamed of getting arm-deep inside their weaponry for vorns! Just imagine the destructive potential the Knights would have needed for protection against all possible threats! If I’m remembering my history right, that was around the time the Galactic Council formed, and I doubt they were too keen on colonization even back then - fun ruiners that they are, can’t even let a mech trade his inventions within his own species -"

Something clicked in her memory, and Nautica cut him off. “Don’t you design weapons?” she asked. “Thunderclash was always talking about you, going on about extension of hostilities caused by excess violence -“

Brainstorm’s wings flared with pride “That’s me!” he said. “Designed no less than two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven weapons of war for the Autobot cause-“

"Including the initial discoveries that made the Nightmare Engines possible?" she asked sarcastically.

"You say that like I planned for those designs to be stolen!" Brainstorm protested. "Anyway, all I want is to know if you know anything about Titan security systems." 

Nautica opened her mouth to press the subject of the weaponry, but Brainstorm must have realized what she was going to say, because he cut her off with a point of his finger. “Hey, don’t keep dragging that up! It’s old news, and it’s not like lecturing me on file safety will bring back anyone who died.”

Nautica jerked back like he’d tried to hit her. Actually, if he had hit her it probably would have done less; Brainstorm wasn’t built for hand-to-hand and Nautica was very good at bracing herself. She just really wasn’t prepared for that kind of insensitivity, since whatever their other faults, everyone on the  _Vis Vitalis_  had  _cared._

"If you really want to know," she said, trying to put as much chill as possible in her words, "you should go ask Metroplex. He knows his own systems." With that, she dropped back down to the floor to continue her work. 

"Hey, hey, hey!" Brainstorm said, leaning over and poking her in the shoulder. "Don’t just drop me like that - and I’ve already tried Metroplex." 

"He knew too much about you?" Nautica asked, steadfastly refusing to look up at him,

"Your jet leader did," he admitted. "I thought you knew more about recent history than them …?" he trailed off.

"Yes," she said, "But Windblade’s a better judge of character than either of us. She never liked Paddox, even when he was one of Thunderclash’s favorites, and look how that turned out."

Brainstorm groaned. “Don’t I know. On both counts, too. I should’ve guessed Thunderclash and Alpha Trion wouldn’t just let anyone go after Metroplex and half the interior damage here is evidence of how well the Ammonites took Paddox’s death. And associated events.”

"Anyway!" he said, moving to sit cross-legged beside her. "Any chance of seeing anything? Any of the stuff you saw up while you were keeping the water out of his brain?"

"Not without Metroplex’s say-so," Nautica replied. "I’m no doctor - not even close - but I’m not a gossip." She paused for a moment. "Well, not about important stuff. And this is important!" she added, turning at last to glare at Brainstorm.

He huffed air out through his vents. “I already know it’s important, which is exactly why I need this information.” Brainstorm said with the over-patient air of a mech talking to a particularly slow newbuild, which Nautica did not take kindly to at all. She grabbed his arm and twisted so the wires in his elbow were exposed and slammed it into the open circuitry in the wall. Brainstorm yelped as the electricity zapped him, and hit her in the antenna. Nautica released him and stared remorsefully at the crushed wires while Brainstorm scrambled off backwards.

"What was that?" he snapped. "Were you trying to transfer information the old-fashioned way?"

"I was trying," she began, glaring at him, "to get you to leave."

Brainstorm glared right back at her. “It’ll take more than that to drive me off, especially after Perceptor started scheming keep me out of the brain cavity.”

"So I’m your last hope, is what you’re saying?" Nautica asked. "And that looked like you were plenty shocked from where  _I’m_  sitting.”

"Well, I don’t see a lot of combat," he said, "so it’s natural for me to have a lower pain threshold than the rest of these crazies with guns." 

Nautica stared at him for a moment.  _Does he even realize what he just said?_  she wondered. “I barely saw any combat across the whole war,” she said, “And I could take that shock with out any surprise.”

"Oh, you probably smash your hands ever other day with that ridiculous wrench set of yours!" Brainstorm said, jabbing his finger towards her. It would have looked more convincingly furious if he hadn’t still been sprawled across the floor of the hallway where he had pulled backwards.

"You just told me not to lecture you about file safety, so you should take your own advice and not lecture me about wrench safety!" Nautica paused. "Or is it tool safety? … Repair safety? Whatever!"

"I wasn’t lecturing you," he huffed, sitting upright again.

"Really?" she said.

Brainstorm rolled his optics. “I’ve got better things to do than lecture,” he said, standing up. “I never was one for teaching, not even back before the war.”

"I’d tell you to get working," Nautica said, and leaned back to look him in the optics, "but I think that would be a reward for you."

"Really?" Brainstorm asked, looking around the hall like he was just realizing how much of Metroplex he could explore by himself. Then again, Nautica thought, maybe he was. Brainstorm struck her as one of those ‘bots who would jump from thought to thought at a moment’s notice, except with him it was a dangerous tendency - weapons tended to be more stable when they were complete, not left half-finished and potentially unstable. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have gotten to be infamous if he wasn’t careful, she admitted to herself. 

"If you try to start prying any panels off down here, I’ll hit you with my wrench," she warned him. "After all, I smash my hands with it every day, according to you, so I know exactly how much it can hurt."

Brainstorm took a step away from the wall he had preparing to touch. “So easily offended!” he muttered. 

"I don’t really think protecting Metroplex’s right to not be taken apart means I’m easily offended?" Nautica said, wincing internally at the uncertainty of her words. 

"I wouldn’t actually take him apart, you know," Brainstorm said, looking down at her. "I’d just. Patch into the open part, like you’re doing. It’s not that different."

"Except I’m trying to help him, and you’re trying to make weapons." she pointed out, debating standing up again if this conversation went on any longer.

"If the Ammonites are any indication? We need those weapons just as much as we need Metroplex himself. Maybe more, if he takes off for deep space again. What would that be, his third time leaving the rest us? Fourth?" Brainstorm mused.

"With people like you around, I’m surprised he ever came back." Nautica said, finally deciding to stand.

"To be honest," Brainstorm said, "people like me were mostly going out and finding him. I think Metroplex is a bit of an introvert, except on a galactic scale."

"Strange for a guy built to have people live inside him," she said. "I mean, most of the Titans had to be okay with that…" 

"It could be a learned behavior," Brainstorm speculated. "Too many years in deep space? Too many rambling stories from Alpha Trion?"

_Wait_ , Nautica thought.  _The other Titans_. “Why isn’t the other one - the Necrotitan - any good?”

"Necrosis," Brainstorm replied. "Prolonged exposure to Ore-2 doesn’t do anyone any favors, and that thing had been practically buried in it before it got dumped on Iacon’s doorstep."

"Ore-2?" Nautica said, recalling her history lessons. "Slag, I’m surprised the space bridge still worked, even if that was non-living circuitry."

"And the living weapons systems are corroded beyond belief." Brainstrom sighed. "Looks almost like Cosmic Rust - but it’s not, it’s non-contagious," he added quickly, seeing Nautica’s alarmed expression. "Handling that stuff isn’t in my line of work."

"You just do guns?" she said dryly. 

"I do plenty of things besides guns!" he said. "Like - the holomatter avatars. I did an improvement on the original design, which was Perceptor’s, of course, and I worked on the shields to get everyone into the Dead Universe." He turned away from Nautica. "I have plenty of talents, and I haven’t even mentioned the other weapons yet." Nautica noticed that he pressed his hand to his chestplate in a similar way to how Thunderclash did, on days when his spark caused him particular pain. She blinked. If he was sick, she didn’t know anything about it, but prying into the life of someone she had just electrocuted not ten minutes prior seemed a little crass.  _Chromia would have asked_ , she thought.  _But I’m not Chromia._

"Well, then go do one of those things," Nautica said, and groped for a snappy comeback.  _Chromia always has one_. _Something like “Because personally? I don’t like how you always bring things back to the brilliance of your inventions,” except cleverer. And, of course, Chromia would actually_ say _it, instead of just thinking it._

"Oh,  _fine_ ,” Brainstorm said, facing her once more. “I’d tell you what I was going to work on, but I doubt you’d understand.”

"I’m sure Perceptor will," Nautica replied, never breaking optic contact. "So you two can talk about it to your spark’s content."

"I’ll be sure to tell him what a detriment to Cybertronian security he’s been lately," Brainstorm said, and moved to leave. He paused, and faced Nautica. "Tell your leader what I said about protecting against alien attacks. Back when I was talking about the Knights and their Metrotitans. And tell her that I’ll come back and ask permission again."

"I’ll be sure to pass it on," Nautica replied, and watched him stride out of the hallway towards the nearest exit hatch. "See that, Metroplex?" she said to the air with a grin as soon as she was sure he was out of earshot. "I’m pretty sure you get used to that sight, since I don’t think Windblade will back down anytime soon."


End file.
